Fallen snow
by Marenke
Summary: She looked back at the shadow of the palace in Os Alta, illuminated by the high moon, and shivered with the sudden cold, feeling the first snowflake fall. Then, turning her back to the palace, Alina went on her way.


**Inktober prompt day 11: snow.**

* * *

Nikolai dies, and Alina stays long enough to organize the funeral, see to the rites and her eldest son crowned - officially the king; he had already stepped up to the duty when Nikolai had fallen ill. Then, kissing all her children - grown, with no need for a mother who would see them die as well - on their foreheads, Alina left in the dark of the night with nothing other than a kefta and the clothes in her body.

In her skin still stood the touch of Nikolai, a wrinkled shell of the man she had loved for the past few decades, him aging and she standing still, a perfect saintly picture of holiness. It hurt to see him like that while she stood unaltered.

In his final moments, Nikolai had smiled at her, blind eyes looking at her. He asked for light, and Alina illuminated the room until she couldn't feel her tears or hear his breathing, raspy and ragged, tired.

She looked back at the shadow of the palace in Os Alta, illuminated by the high moon, and shivered with the sudden cold, feeling the first snowflake fall. Then, turning her back to the palace, Alina went on her way.

* * *

Legends and folklore had _always_ fascinated Nikolai from as early as he could remember. His favorites came from the era of Grishas, where there had been whole armies of them and they shaped the world they lived on. Nowadays, they didn't do much - the Grisha rights movement a few decades ago changed that -, and several saints were born.

His favorite legend was that of the _Sol Koroleva_, though. He had first found her on one of his school books, an unnamed Sun Summoner who destroyed the Fold - a sea of darkness dividing the country in half, and Nikolai, who had grown up on the permafrost's edge, couldn't imagine black fog covering the ground and blinding the senses.

Maybe, he reasoned to himself, standing on the first snow day of the year on a cemetery, _that _\- the legends, the myths, stories of centuries long gone that fascinated this little country bumpkin - was why he had left his hometown and everything he had know for college in the capital, near the old Grand Palace. He lived in an old apartment with three roommates and struggled to pay the bills, doing part-time jobs while studying for his college major, history.

Although, today, he had skipped everything in favor of being on this particular cemetery, a thermos full of burnt coffee near him, pen and paper on his pocket, biding his time by playing with scraps of metal. In his line of sight, the tomb of the _Korol Rezni_, the snowflakes barely touching the marble surface.

Even in his far-away home, there was a myth that the _Sol Koroleva_ was still alive - many scoffed; while Grishas lived longer than most humans, it didn't meant they could live at least six hundred years -, and that she traveled the world, her only defining marks having bright white hair and bringing luck to those who accepted gave her a roof to stay dry under and food for her to sustain herself.

But - part of the myth also said that, while an _incredibly _lonely creature, she always came back once a year, on the first snow of winter, wearing a kefta from the days of the Grisha soldiers, to pay respects to his memory, whoever he was: his name was lost to history. Nikolai, whose major was history with a focus on Old Ravka - before the revolution had taken away the throne from the king and put a series of dictators in its place, around a hundred years ago, and then followed by slow, stumbling steps towards the modern-day democracy -, especially so in the _Sol Koroleva._

_If _she was real, Nikolai would bet she would be the most interesting person alive. She had, after all, been there, seen everything and even took part on several events that had shaped Old Ravka's history and subsequent modernization; therefore, interviewing her would be fantastic, even if it would only serve to satisfy a few curiosities.

Most of them were her name: her children with the_ Korol Rezni_ had deliberately erased it from history, saying that their mother would live long enough to not have it spread around, a chain around her for eternity.

Some historians threw popular names at the time and tried to pinpoint locations to her birthplace based on fragments and what little had survived from diaries from the era of the Unsea, but Nikolai always had an inkling they weren't right. Call it a sixth sense: he very much doubted she was named something like _Marya _or _Lizabeta_. These names, to Nikolai, just didn't feel right.

As such, he sipped his increasingly cold coffee and bid his time. Besides, this wasn't even the coldest snow he had faced - everyone in Os Alta always seemed in a kerfuffle when the newscaster predicted it, as if the world would be buried down in a big, wet, white blanket, but to Nikolai this was barely a summer snow.

He sighed, looking at his breath forming fog on the air, and paused when something whiter than the fog appeared, walking slowly. She wore a kefta of old, embroidered in faded gold in the navy blue fabric. Her hair was white, impossibly white, and she seemed calm and resplendent.

Shit, was this the _Sol Koroleva_? He couldn't believe the legends were real - that might've mean that the Stag of Morozova was real, just like the Sea Serpent supposedly was - although one legend said that the Black Heretic had killed it… But no, if one legend was real, then all others must've been, too. If the impossible was possible, then Nikolai could dream, right?

The girl approached the tomb, melancholy etched in her face like a mask, and Nikolai - leaving behind his thermos, hands on his pockets trying to find the pen and paper nervously - jumped up, approaching the tomb while she seemed deep in thought.

"Hey, are you the _Sol Koroleva_?" He asked, the term of Old Ravkan (not as old as Ancient Ravkan, not as modern as the language of the current era, a middle term for a middle language) origin heavy, foreign and yet familiar on his tongue.

She whipped her head to him, staring up and down, brown eyes shining with recognition. She spoke a few words, one of them sounding vaguely like his name but with the wrong intonation. She looked at him to the tomb, and then back at him, gesturing vaguely to the cold marble where the _Korol Rezni_ slept peacefully.

While he didn't know much of Old Ravkan - just enough to be able to read the documents in their original forms -, he knew enough to be able to decipher what she had said. _Great, Nikolai, you've made it beyond the veil? _She had said - or he guessed, at least. Again, he wasn't very good with the language…

"Er, yeah, I'm Nikolai." He took his notepad, and her eyes went to his hands as he took notes. So the king's name was Nikolai, great. That'd be useful to narrowing down the kings of the pre-modern times. Maybe he was a post-_Sol Koroleva_ king? One of her sons, perhaps?

Her eyes, fixated on his hands, and she shook her head before looking at him.

"It's been a while since anyone called me that." There was an accent to her language, like it was her second option. "Pardon me, you just look like him."

"It's alright, I get that a lot. Common face." Nikolai smiled, and she did too, soft and placid. "Sorry, I should present myself. I'm Nikolai Lantsov, no relation to the monarchy at all, and I'm a history major with an interest in legends from the _Sol Koroleva_'s era. Are you her?"

She seemed amused, and laughed. Nikolai was patient enough to wait, even if he wasn't aware of the joke, fidgeting in place.

"Saints, you're just like him. Yes, I am the Sol Koroleva, but please, call me Alina."

Nikolai smiled without noticing. Yes, the name Alina felt right.

"Alina Starkov?" He caught himself saying, and stopped, frowning. He had never heard of such surname, nor this being a possibility for her. Then were had he heard this? Maybe some more obscure paper he couldn't remember reading?

Alina offered him a sad smile.

"It's also been a while since I've used that name, too. It's a bit cold here, why don't we go take coffee somewhere?" She asked, offering him an arm, and Nikolai took it. "Although we may have to stop somewhere to let this old thing on."

"I can come back another day?" He offered, and Alina shook her head, taking him with her. She was breathtaking, truth be told, and increasingly familiar.

"And let you out of my sight, ready to tell the world and the saints that I'm alive? No, thank you." She turned her nose at that, and he laughed, which made her smile like she was seeing something nostalgic.

"I would never do that!" Nikolai replied, scandalized, mockingly putting a hand to his heart. "You wound me, my queen!"

In a way, if he was honest, he felt like he was seeing something that he had been missing and not noticed it until now, too, watching her eyes shine as she laughed, earnest and honest.

The snow started to fall, heavier, and Alina looked up at the skies, smiling softly and muttering something incomprehensible before looking at him once more, keeping her pace outside the cemetery walls with a spring to her step.

* * *

"Ah, _shit_, my thermos!" The ghost of Nikolai said, and Aline, disentangling herself from him, couldn't help but chuckle. He eyed her, carefully. "Er, sorry about that. Uh, if I leave, you're not going to disappear and only come back next year, right?"

"Should I? It sounds like a fantastic idea." Alina replied, smiling, and he shook his head, before sprinting off to the place where he had been hiding. She stared at this Nikolai's back, wondering.

Alina had heard about reincarnation, even though she thought it impossible - after all, were it real, Aleksander would've come back already to try to have her, or maybe Mal would've come to ask why she had let him die. Nikolai, meanwhile, Alina had been sure he had died with no regrets.

And yet, it was so like him to come back - for her, but was it too egocentric to say it so?

Still. The same face on a stranger's, same name, everything to the last detail, she'd wager.

The snow gently fell around her, and Alina smiled sadly. Well, if this was his return, then why not enjoy while it would last?


End file.
